Could you imagine life without fish sticks, salmon, shrimp, swordfish, crabcakes, or tuna? Actually, I can because I hate seafood, but it is possible that in the year 2050, seafood could only be a memory.
In a study published on Friday, ecologists and economists warn that if our current habits of overfishing and pollution continue, the populations of just about all seafood could collapse in just a few decades. In class we have larned that even one species change in population could affect the whole entire ecosystem. Boris Worm of Dalhousie University enforces this idea: “
“Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world’s ocean, we saw the same picture emerging. In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems.”
Worm continues by describing how when ocean species collapse, it makes the ocean itself weaker and less able to recover from shocks like global climate change. But according to Andrew Sugden, the international managing editor of the journal “Science,” it’s not too late to act. A shift from single species management to ecosystem management is needed, but it requires a lot of political will to do it. Co-author Steve Palumbi said, “Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the oceans species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood.”
Four years was spent on this investigation. Scientists studied 32 controlled experiments, other studies from 48 marine protected areas, and global catch data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s database of all fish and invertebrates worldwide from 1950 to 2003. They also studied a 1,000-year time period for 12 coastal regions, looking at data from archives, fishery records, sediment cores and archaeological data.
“At this point 29 percent of fish and seafood species have collapsed — that is, their catch has declined by 90 percent. It is a very clear trend, and it is accelerating,” Worm said. “If the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime — by 2048.”
In order to fix this problem, researchers want new marine reserves, better management to prevent overfishing by large trawling fleets, and tighter controls on pollution. 48 areas worldwide are already protected, and they found that the diversity of species recovered dramatically. With that came an improvement in the ecosystem’s productivity and stability.
However, the The National Fisheries Institute (a trade association for the seafood industry) doesn’t see a problem.
“Fish stocks naturally fluctuate in population,” the institute said. “By developing new technologies that capture target species more efficiently and result in less impact on other species or the environment, we are helping to ensure our industry does not adversely affect surrounding ecosystems or damage native species.”
Seafood is a huge part of Americans’ diet. On top of that, worldwide fishing provides $80 billion in revenue and 200 million people depend on it for their livelihoods. A decline in seafood could be a serious disaster.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15532333/
